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Guilty Pleasures: Cocktail

Scott McKenzie picks out the many bad and few good points of this 1980s relic...

Scott McKenzie, you stand before us charged with not only enjoying but also owning a copy of a movie that goes against all that is right in the world of film. We will hear the views of the prosecution and the defence. It will then be up to the good people of DVDActive to decide whether Cocktail is a guilty pleasure or not.

Prosecution

Let’s get down to basics here— Cocktail is a bad movie. This is a fact and cannot be refuted, no matter what puny excuses the defence may dangle in front of you. It has a pitiful score of 15% on RottenTomatoes and won not one, but two Razzie awards (for Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay). It is a cynical movie made purely to cash in on Tom Cruise’s popularity in the 1980s and deserves to be consigned to the movie dustbin forever.

Released between The Color Of Money and Rain Man, two excellent movies that both contain strong performances by the Cruiser, Cocktail contains one of the worst, if not the worst performance of his career. If his interpretation of drunkenness (exhibit A) on no less than two separate occasions is any reflection on the man himself, we can only conclude that either Tom Cruise is the worst actor ever to walk the planet or he had never been drunk before and therefore had no frame of reference. Cocktail is also notable for the highest number of appearances of the patented Tom Cruise cheesy 80s smile (exhibit B)*.

Exhibit A - The Cruiser has one too many

Exhibit B - Say Cheese!

*not scientifically measured

It’s not just Tom Cruise who is at fault here. Thoroughly deserving of the Razzie award for Worst Screenplay, it’s very surprising that this steaming pile of neon dung is actually based on a novel. The novel is not being submitted as evidence because the defendant has not stooped so low as to read it. From beginning to end, Cocktail launches an onslaught of appallingly written and delivered lines on the unfortunate viewer. Here are just a few examples of these crimes against screenwriting:

“Coughlin’s law; Bury the dead, they stink up the place.” “You wait till you've given them crabs. Then you'll really know hatred.” “Coughlin's diet: cocktails and dreams.” “All things end badly, or else they wouldn't end.”

However, nothing can compare to the excruciatingly bad line uttered by Doug Coughlin’s wife Kerry, who the filmmakers obviously struggled to find anything to do with other than have her stand there and look pretty. When our ‘heroes’ find themselves in a club in Jamaica, she makes the well-informed comment that she’s “never seen a club with such intense dance vibes”. Presumably all the clubs she’d been to in the past had been seated affairs.

I could go on forever. I could go into the fact that when you examine the motivations and actions of the ‘hero’, you can only come to the conclusion that he is a complete and utter asshole. Motivated only by money and running off with an old piece with money even though Elisabeth Shue is willing to get all wet with him under a waterfall, it appears that even in the final scene he has learned nothing from the death of his friend and mentor. Never mind that the interview montage liberally rips off The Secret of My Success and Gina Gershon is criminally under-used. And don’t even get me started on fluglebinders or the inordinate length of time it takes them to serve a drink! I will leave the jury with the following clip (exhibit C), knowing they will agree with me and decide that the movie is the guiltiest of all guilty pleasures.

Exhibit C - The World's Worst Last Barman Poet

Defence

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I will be honest. I cannot argue with my learned friend for the prosecution. Everything he said is true. Cocktail is a bad movie. Period. Yes, it is a movie that shamelessly exploits the trend of flair bartending that was growing in the 80s and appears to have been made purely with the intention of sucking money out of gullible punters’ wallets. Yes, it probably contains Tom Cruise’s worst performance but God damn it, it’s good bad fun. Cocktail is not a movie that was ever meant to be analysed. It was never meant to be picked apart by film scholars to decide just which line is the worst and it was definitely never meant to be anyone’s favourite movie.

Instead, let’s focus on the positives. First of all, there is the appearance of the always-enjoyable Bryan Brown (exhibit D). Fresh from his starring performance in F/X, he may turn on the gurning far too often and yes, some of his lines are toe-curlingly bad, but the relationship he shares with young Flanagan is genuine. The viewer believes he really cares for Tom Cruise’s character and wants to guide him along the same path he followed, even if his actions are pretty stupid. His death is the one event in the movie that comes close to eliciting some emotion from the cast. The appearance of Ron Dean as Uncle Pat and Jack Newman as the Economics teacher (exhibit E) also add spice to an admittedly bland melting pot.

Exhibit D - Bryan Brown: the diamond in the rough

Exhibit E - I'm a bit part player, get me out of here!

In addition to the evidence I’ve already presented, there are many points I could make in favour of Cocktail. Erm… it’s around this time that Tom Cruise and Mimi Rogers split up so if it wasn’t for Cocktail he might not have got it on with Nicole Kidman and we may never have had erm… Far and Away. The bartending’s nicely choreographed I suppose and we might not have bottle juggling tournaments in the real world without this movie. Oh okay, I give up. Cocktail stinks. Just go easy on the defendant. I guess we can blame it on the editing. Cocktail could easily have been better as a horror movie, as exhibit F clearly shows.

Exhibit F - Cocktail: The Horror Trailer

The people of DVDActive must now deliver their verdict: guilty or not guilty?

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Not Guilty. Getting drunk and watching a double-bill of this and 'Dirty Work' is hilarious. Until the inevitable self-loathing that follows the next day... That said, Coughlin's Laws and a chunky Elisabeth Shue totally make this film!

Yeah, I've never enjoyed this one, it's a little better than Days of Thunder though. I'll make an entry for your new series if you make one for mine Scott. The problem is that the only thing I watch that I feel truley guilty about is Dragon Ball Z, and that isn't a movie.

Guilty! Horribly written,acted and a horrible plot. Just throw Cocktail into the "worst films of the 80's bin" and be done with it.Roadhouse belongs there too.Tom Cruise is not my favorite actor by any means but I do give the guy props for the films he chooses to be in.Cocktail is not one of them.Cocktail certainly does fit the criteria for Cruise to do the film, being that the director, screenwriter, cinematographer has to make him look "cool."

Cocktail is decent IMO. No way a classic but it's up there with Ghost, if you get my drift. Pity all the DVDs suck.

Quote: 1) Pre-digital film age. While some classic films did their best with practical effects, most did not. Are you kidding? CGI has almost killed decent action films entirely. The action films of the 80s with practical effects if you will may look a bit ropey but overall look way more realistic than Lucas' vision of CGI heaven (or hell). Give me a man in a suit any day.

Quote: 3) And the basic mentality of the era. Let's face it...the '80s was the Decade of Cocaine. It was the "kewl" thing of the day. I mean "Crocodile Dundee", a freakin' comedy, had cocaine use in it. It at least made films more realistic, that and the misogyny and fowl language. I don't like any of them but it's realism.

Too many films today are so politically correct you lose all the fun from them. They're watered down versions of the films we got 10-20 years ago. A perfect example Die Hard or Die Hard 4.0? I know which I'd pick. Where was all the swearing in Die Hard 4.0? These sort of films simply don't work so well without fowl language and bloody violence.

There was a time when British censors would give out 18 ratings two a dozen, today it's almost impossible. The film is given either a 15 or even worse 12A (roughly the same as a PG13). Film studios are insisting more and more films to be "family friendly", so much so that 12A or PG13 are considered the golden ratings.

There is no equivalent in The States as most 15 and 18 rated films over here get the same R in America. So I cannot really make the comparison so easily using MPAA ratings.

This is the movie that made me hate Tom Cruise. I didn't like Risky Business or Top Gun. Then I saw this c**p. I then realized he smiled too much in all of those movies. Hated him them hate him more now. I was so happy in 2005 when the world turned on him & finaly saw him for what he was a smiling idiot

J S wrote: I LOVE THE HORROR TRAILER! Hilarious! I must admit though, I used to dig this movie when I was younger... but upon further review, I just can't sit through it. This is one of those movies you watch when you're sick in bed and can't find the remote to turn the channel. It is certainly guilty of being a horrendously bad movie, but then again, go back and watch some of the movies you loved from the mid to late 80's... most of them are pretty effin' bad!

Which is why my DVD collection contains very little if any of the guilty pleasure movies from the '80s that I used to like. 'Cause most of them don't hold up very well today for the following reasons:

1) Pre-digital film age. While some classic films did their best with practical effects, most did not.

2) Bad poofy permed hair-dos. Need I say more?

3) And the basic mentality of the era. Let's face it...the '80s was the Decade of Cocaine. It was the "kewl" thing of the day. I mean "Crocodile Dundee", a freakin' comedy, had cocaine use in it.

4) And finally, perhaps the Reagan-era references. Capital/Corporate greed and so forth. From "Robocop" to "Wallstreet".

I LOVE THE HORROR TRAILER! Hilarious! I must admit though, I used to dig this movie when I was younger... but upon further review, I just can't sit through it. This is one of those movies you watch when you're sick in bed and can't find the remote to turn the channel. It is certainly guilty of being a horrendously bad movie, but then again, go back and watch some of the movies you loved from the mid to late 80's... most of them are pretty effin' bad!

As a long-time memeber of this site I demand more Guilty Pleasure Trials! The Trials must continue!

but to be honest, i've never seen this movie beginning to end, just bits and parts and i havent seen those bits since the 80s so i cant really comment on the movie itself, but i do like the whole courtroom style of the article...please use that again in future reviews.